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Unread 17-03-2015, 11:08
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Jon Stratis Jon Stratis is offline
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FRC #2177 (The Robettes)
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Re: Dangerous precedent set by Q&A 461: Loaning Parts/Assemblies to other teams

Quote:
Originally Posted by jee7s View Post
Frankly (and that's not meant to be a pun, FrankJ), if things are enforced as Jon suggests, it's a problem since it's not in line with this Q&A response. If Jon reads this, I agree with your interpretation at a moral and common sense level, but the Q&A response explicitly disallows a lot of what you say you would allow. To me, Jon's interpretation is UNreasonable given the text of the Q&A.

I vehemently disagree with the Q&A response, but the response is also pretty darned clear cut and explicit. Having various volunteers at various events "interpret" the response with the "intent" of fostering a positive experience is just as bad as volunteers "interpreting" the rules in the strictest manner possible a la Dallas. We don't need interpretation of bad rules to make a good event, we need the rules to be good in the first place.

The path to hell is paved with the best of intentions. While I don't think anyone is trying to make things evil here, I'd suggest it is more righteous to consistently enforce the letter of a bad rule everywhere than to create a scenario of mixed or muddledexpectations from event to event.

IMHO.
If you were on the GDC and had to answer the question, how would you answer it in order to allow teams to help each other but not do something like taking a second pick, handing them a ramp on a string, and saying "your going to add this now"? How do you, in a short and concise way, draw a line between what is acceptable and what isn't, while staying consistent with R1 and requiring that the robot be built by the team?

At some point, you have to rely on your trained key volunteers to interpret the rules correctly. There are many examples of rules we could list where some level of interpretation comes into play.
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